"This is a night after my own heart," he murmured, "overcast and dark. I should have been very embarrassed had the moon come out." He felt his pockets. "Everything I need. My electric lamp and a good, strong, silk ladder." Then, surveying the tower, he soliloquized: "A fine monument! Solid and strong. They don't build them like that nowadays." Juve took a few steps, bent his knees and stretched his arms, tested the suppleness of his body. "Ah, in spite of my forty-odd years, I'm still pretty fit for ... the work I have to do." * * * * * By the aid of the lightning rod, the gutters and the inequalities in the stones, the detective was enabled to climb without much difficulty to the first floor. There he paused to take breath and to examine the shutters of a window. "Can't get in that way," he muttered, "they're bolted inside. I'll have to climb higher." The same condition met him on the second floor, but when he had finally reached the roof, he espied a large chimney which promised a method of ingress to the apartment below. The descent was anything but easy, and Juve, in spite of his great strength and agility, was used up by the time he had reached the bottom. His clothes were torn and he was covered with the greasy soot he had accumulated on his journey. By dint of brushing and scraping, he succeeded in cleaning off the worst of it, and then looked round to take his bearings. He had landed in the large waiting-room which adjoined the royal apartments. The distant sound of dance music came to his ears and the atmosphere of the place was cold and damp. "He doesn't often come here, I'll bet," thought Juve. A door led him directly into the King's bathroom, and Juve paused to admire the famous bath of solid silver which the municipality had presented to the King upon one of his birthdays. "I've a good mind to take a tub," he muttered. "Maybe I shall find His Majesty locked in his bedroom, and I'm hardly a fit sight to appear before him." The detective now felt some cause for anxiety. There were two alternatives to consider. Either the King was absent, and in that case Juve's business would be to discover the hiding place of the diamond and clear up the question whether the King had taken it with him, or, if he had been sequestered, to discover his prison. Clutching the butt of his Browning revolver in his pocket, the detective opened the door to the King's bedroom and entered. A thick carpet deadened the sound of his footsteps. After listening for a few moments he relit his pocket lamp and flashed it round the room. In the centre stood an immense bed of oak designed in Renaissance style, the posts of which reached to the ceiling. Three steps led up to it. Juve noticed that it had not been disturbed. The sheets and pillows were all in order. There was nothing, however, to indicate that the King had been absent for any length of time.